The traditional manner of providing receipts for payment transactions using financial accounts (e.g., credit cards and debit cards) is to print the payment amount and the purchased goods or services on a paper receipt. For instance, when a consumer wishes to pay for an item at a merchant's place of business by using a credit card, the consumer typically runs the credit card through a card reader at the merchant's point-of-sale (POS) terminal. The merchant's POS terminal submits a transaction request to an acquirer. The merchant typically stores all of the day's authorized transactions in a batch, and sends the batch to the acquirer at the end of the day to receive payment. The acquirer sends the batch to a card network (e.g., VISA or MasterCard), which distributes the transactions to credit card issuers. The credit card issuers authorize the transactions and then transfer the transaction amounts to one or more financial accounts of the merchant.
After a transaction has been authorized, the credit card issuer sends a confirmation to the POS terminal along a path opposite to that described above. The POS terminal prints out a paper receipt listing the purchases made, the method of payment, and the prices including tax, discounts and other price adjustments. The paper receipt serves as a proof of the purchase for the consumer.